Life before Google and Wikipedia

Have you ever realized that even though we communicate via internet, we’ve never really discussed our online history?

I’ve recently obtained a pretty cool interview booklet: a collection of [origo] chatroom interviews. Among many other interesting discussions, I found a 2004- interview with the chief executive officer of T-Online Hungary:

(C-REATIVE_): Don’t you actually think that 512 mbps is a bit embrassing for 10 thousand HUF (=40 EUR) per month? In Japan, they get 2 mega for less money.

LOL. The answer is not even important. This made me laugh out loud. I have over 2 mega by now and I get impatient if I have to wait more than 30 seconds for an mp3-download. Good old days!

This made me reconsider my user-history. It’s really interesting, in fact. Let’s see how it all began…

So, I first heard about the internet in 1996. I couldn’t imagine what it looked like or anything as I didn’t even own a PC, nor did anybody I personally knew (apart from my uncle who had an old Commodore 64!!!). I first got my own PC – with an 500 MB winchester, lol – in 1997, but I couldn’t think of internet at the time, of course.

In the meanwhile, I got my very first e-mail address in 1997, at school. It was at least a kilometer long and I immediately gave out my password to a penpal of mine in snailmail. He stole it and filled it up with hard porn in about a week, so I was banned in the end. LOL It didn’t really hit me as a tragedy as I couldn’t really use it for anything. Haha. During that time, many of my classmates got into mIRC and I remember how much it shocked me that you can talk to another person in another room, in another school… let alone in another city!

I got a bit more acquinted with online culture in 1998, in the US. People were using Netscape Navigator, I remember. :) Altavista.com was the number one search tool, I even remember that. :)  However, I could not get in touch with any of my friends at the time because… simply nobody, absolutey nobody, not one of my friends had net-connection at home! Woah! This sudden realization shocks me like hell. I mean, I just can’t imagine how the fuck we would communicate NOW if it wasn’t for the net???? (Okay, mobile phone… but that’s more expensive, of course.) I can’t even think of one person I personally know who does not use internet on a regular basis, at home as well as at work/school.

The time between 1999 and 2001/2 sort of appears as a blank space in my memory. No idea what I was doing then. I had awareness of the net and I did look up this and that every once in a while, I even had two email addresses I can remember, but… internet was not yet a part of my daily life.

Since when can I sort of call myself a user? Eh, I suppose it began in 2002 when I first registered on forums (index.hu) and community portals (ld50.hu). I did have a 33 kps dial-up at the time… and I even had to spice up my PC for THAT, loool :DDD. Oh my fucking god, how my dad hated it when he couldn’t use the phone because of me!!! And of course, it took ages to OPEN a site, let alone DOWNLOADING something. The latter didn’t even come to my mind, although I have already heard of Napster (!) and stuff.

I turned into a very regular user by 2004, but I still had a dial-up with the same old fucked-up internal modem. (Phonebills were terrible at the time, huh.)

I got my first ADSL subscription in July, 2005. Now that I look back, I absolutely can’t see how the hell I could put up with dial-up for such a long time.

I keep thinking, thinking and thinking but there are questions I cannot find answers for: e.g. where the hell did I get crucial, up-to-date information before Google and Wikipedia? Was there even life before Google and Wikipedia? Or IWIW, Myspace, Youtube, Photobucket, Yahoo and the rest? Where did you look up someone new if not on IWIW or Myspace (preferably both)? And just imagine how unfomfortable obtaining new music would be without Soulseek, DC++ and the rest?

Now I can’t even imagine how things could speed up so damn fast in the past few years. It didn’t even occur to me that I had not had a close relationship with internet until 2003! It appears to me as though I’ve always had used it.

What about you?